Eating disorders that affect weight, such as anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder or obesity, can also change the taste of food, according to a new study from the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado. ), since brain processes alter the sense of taste when we are at an unhealthy weight, making it more difficult to differentiate between a normal taste and a sweet one.
Although we may not realize it, taste has a key impact on our diet. Thus, compulsive eaters or people with obesity tend to have a brain wiring of food addiction, so they need to eat more to feel full. People who suffer from anorexia, on the other hand, have difficulties to experience the pleasure associated with food , so they are more likely to avoid foods considered more pleasant such as hamburgers, sweets or ice cream and their intake is more repulsive how rewarding. Either condition is detrimental to health and is caused by changes in hormones and neurons in the insular cortex , the region of the brain that deals with emotions, perceptions, or motor control.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers conducted an experiment with 106 women to whom they distributed water with sugar or an unflavored solution dissolved in the water. As the women drank the water, brain scans were performed to examine the activity of the insula. They found that abnormal eating patterns such as anorexia or obesity altered the insula’s ability to identify tastes. Participants with anorexia or obesity had a more difficult time distinguishing unflavored water from sugar water, compared to control subjects; this happened even with those people who had already recovered from anorexia.
“ Taste is an important motor of food intake and invariably associated with the different neuronal patterns in the insula. If we cannot differentiate between the different flavors, this can affect how much we eat. And it could also activate or not activate the brain’s reward circuits ”, explains Guido Frank, leader of the study.
The work has been published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
